Textual Analysis - Rooftops (Lost Prophets)

Lostprophets - Rooftops (A Liberation Broadcast) on MUZU.

This textual analysis is of Rooftops, by Lost Prophets. I am researching this video as the meaning of the song is about overcoming oppression and releasing angst and emotion, from a teenage perspective. Hence, this is an emotional narrative and video, and so ties in to the genre of the video we are planning to create.

I have also chosen Lost prophets to research as they are a British band, and because of this I can compare the nature of the video to American music videos. The similarities and differences between American and British Emo music and music videos is an interesting and important issue which will be fully explained in a future post.

The video starts with the band, who are on a helipad at night time. The significance of the helipad is that it is on the rooftop, reflecting the song, and is also a stylistic, well lit location. There are still shots of each member of the band, fading in and out of focus. These show the viewer each member of the band, each looking at the camera. The band shots break up the narrative, and tend to be either handheld or dolly shots, expressing the sense of movement in this sequence. In these shots the band are moving around a lot, expressing emotion through jumping, swinging hair around and suchlike, similar to many videos of this genre. The majority of the band are dressed in black, reflecting the stylistic nature of the Emo genre. The singer is dressed in a white jacket, in complete contrast to the other band members. This contrast highlights the singer as he as the frontman, and the role of the frontman in emo music (arguably) is to represent the emotion of the song, and sometimes the narrative. The role of the frontman in Emo music videos is another issue which will be discussed in a future post.

The narrative follows three teenagers, all fashion-wise following the emo genre conventions, in some way being oppressed by authority, for example parents or boss. The first narrative we see is at a table, where a middle class family is having dinner, the mother and the father arguing over the dinner table. These shots are in slow motion to emphasise the sense of drama and anger, as well as the girl's helplessness within the situation. She is sat between them, caught in the crossfire of their argument, and it is clear that emotion is boiling up inside her. How she is dressed reflects the emo genre conventions, and is in contrast to how her parents are dressed. Perhaps this contrast in dress relates to the differences between their social situations, that her parents fit in to the middle class suburban stereotype, whereas her dress reflects her inner emotions.

The next narrative is in the back of a car, presumably his dad's. He is also dressed in an 'emo' style, wearing a black t-shirt, bleached hair and wearing eyeliner. His dad is dressed in a suit, also reflecting and representing the modern day world. His dad is shouting at him, and like the first narrative his dad's voice is muted, so we feel a sense of isolation from this 'adult' world as an audience, as the 'narrator' does. The teenager is trying to ignore the shouts from his dad, as of the first narrative, trying to avoid conflict.

The following narrative is of, once again, a teenager who stylistically is following the emo genre conventions. He is working in a restaurant in the kitchen, has long hair and 'snakebite' piercings, also wearing an apron. He puts a plate of food on the worktop, but it is obvious that his boss is not happy with it as he is shouting and pointing across the kitchen at him. The teenager looks blankly at him, hiding the pain inside.

These narratives are broken up by band shots. The chorus lyrics are 'standing on the rooftops everybody scream your heart out' and it's as if these lyrics are directed at the characters in the narratives.

These characters finally get the message in a sense after the bridge, in which the singer is singing 'scream your heart out'. At this stage in the video, the video's protagonists start screaming, breaking all the glass and plates around them. This is in slow motion to emphasise the movement, and infer the turnaround of emotion, and of these narrators releasing their bottled up emotion.

The band shots are filmed with a low aperture lens; this is obvious as:

A) The shots are in low lighting (on a helipad at night), and so a low aperture lens would be necessary to capture these.

B) The shots fade in and out of focus often, and are of a really shallow depth of field. This shallow depth of field is a side effect of a low aperture lens. We would seek to do shallow depth of field shots in our production, as these give a great cinematic effect.

All together, this video is a great example of an 'emo' music video, with three strong narratives instead of one, to infer how this suffering goes on everywhere unnoticed. It uses cinematography very well, combining dolly, crane and handheld shots, as well as cinematic low aperture shots. These cinematic aspects I would like to carry through to our own production, although I would prefer to focus on one narrative to make it more immersive.

Cameras

One aspect of our production work that we identified as an important factor was the camera we used. The camera controls many aspects of the visuals of the music video, and the choice of camera has implications on the general quality of the video. Here are some key factors as to what the choice of camera can have an effect on.

• Pixel Resolution: This statistic represents the width and height of the camera footage in pixels, for example 640x400. This can also be abbreviated by the width, for example 720p.
• Aperture: This is depicted by the lens of the camera, which is usually fixed in consumer level cameras. The aperture controls how much light the camera captures. The lower the number, the wider the hole in the centre of the lens, and so the more light the camera captures producing a clearer, brighter picture. This also has an effect on the depth of field; the lower the aperture, the shallower the depth of field.
• FPS: this is how many frames per second the camera captures. This can be an issue when filming fast motion footage such as sports, or when slowing down the footage for a slow motion effect.

Originally we were going to be using the school cameras, but these presented strict limitations to us, refraining us from using particular shots, angles and suchlike. They also limited the quality to that of the camcorder, being about a 640 x 400 resolution.

We sought for an alternative to this, striving for a wider range of focal lengths, better light reception, and higher general quality.

Over the last few years, many D-SLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) cameras have had inbuilt HD movie modes. Though the sound quality is not the standard of the school cameras on these, the visual quality is impeccable as the camera is designed for photography, and the sound quality is unimportant for the shooting of a music video. Photography is one of my personal interests, so I have a few lenses which would fit on a Nikon DSLR, including a Tokina 11-16mm lens. This is an ultra-wide angle lens, and would provide really effective, quirky wide shots of the band. It would also stretch perspectives for shots panning backwards and forwards, creating an interesting, immersive effect.

We have found a friend who we could borrow a Nikon D5000 off; this is the latest standard amateur Nikon camera, featuring a HD 720p movie function.

This camera would allow us to create HD 720p footage, with the quality being the specs of the camera. I have several lenses myself which I could use on this, including the following:

• Nikkor 18-70mm f/3.5: This is a standard kit zoom lens, with a reasonably low aperture, allowing light capture in dark conditions.
• Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8: This is an ultra-wide angle lens, with a low aperture which would be very efficient in capturing low light footage.
• Nikkor 50mm f/1.8: This is a fixed focal length lens, with an extremely low aperture. This allows for telephoto shots in very dark light, and also having a very shallow depth of field, putting the background (or foreground) completely out of focus, an effect we consider desirable in our filming.

All of these lenses create effects that we intended to use in our video, and so using this Nikon DSLR can capture all of these to create a generally higher quality video, with a range of lens based effects.

Textual analysis – Streetcar (Funeral for a Friend)

This music video sets the tone for its genre and target audience unmistakably with the setting being quite clearly a school or college, which relates to the target audience of this genre, which is mainly composed of ‘emotional’ teenagers who will presumably attend some form of college or school.

The mise en scene furthers this, as most of the characters are in school uniform. Also, the band are predominantly dressed in black and red, which are both colours heavily associated with the ‘emocore’ genre, especially the black shirt, red tie and black, skinny jeans. Even the hairstyle of the singer is considered to be ‘emo’, as he has a sweeping side fringe that almost covers one of his eyes.

Lyrics are also tied into this genre and target audience, with the song containing emotional lyrics based around the idea of distance, with the singer telling a magazine the song was about “being so far from friends and family that you feel disconnected from them” which is a subject many members of this target may be able to relate to, with friends leaving school, or if they themselves are leaving to go off to college or university, and are leaving everyone behind.

The visuals used in the video can also be related to the target audience, as the singer is pictured in many shots to be singing in front of a cabinet full of trophies, which is most likely an ironic statement as he is representing the student population who are seen as strange or outcast from normal social groups. This idea of not being accepted may be further echoed in the shots of the girl putting on a bullet proof vest and brass knuckles walking around the school observing, almost as if she is in a post-war environment (walking around after the other events portrayed in the song have happened) and has defended herself from such encounters, although she does not appear to be frightened of this, almost as if her character is portraying the normality of romance gone wrong. This and other narrative shots seem to play on the idea of a school being a form of battleground between both different social groups and between males and females when feelings are involved, but that one party always seems to come out of it worse off. There are shots of couples throughout, with differing emotions, from lust to anger, perhaps showing the varying stages of relationships, and echoing the lyrics “I can’t feel the same about you anymore”. At the songs climax, these shots are put into slow motion in order to emphasise the portrayal of the deep emotion of the various situations, it also cuts between the two couples very quickly directly before the songs climax, with us being brought back to normal speed with a trophy smashing the glass of the cabinet behind the lustful couple.

There is a focus on the band’s performance, with many band shots appearing, of not only the singer but the whole band, in order to emphasise the energy of their live performance, and to almost advertise their live shows to create a greater revenue for them and the record company they are signed to. The focus on energy and performance is particularly prevalent in British bands (which this band are) perhaps because they cannot create as great a revenue as their American counterparts, and need to sell tickets to live shows to remain profitable.

This video could also being either a satirical or ironic view on teenage drama television shows; showing a more gritty, realistic and emotional portrayal of teenage life within a school.

Constructing a Narrative

One of the things we identified as an important aspect of an 'emo' music video is the narrative involved, narrative meaning a story created in a constructive format, or telling the story of the song within music videos.

The vast majority of 'emocore' music videos focus around their subjects, either directly or abstractly, and due to the style which focuses around emotional issues such as break ups, jealousy, depression and such like, the narratives reflect these with often quite controversial videos, the Jimmy Eat World 'Pain' video being a good example, in which the protagonist tries to take away his emotional pain from a break up by hurting himself physically, such as jumping into walls, throwing himself down stairs amongst other methods.

The lyrics of the song 'Pain' are more or less about the pain the narrator is going through from his break up, and 'taking the pain away'. Because of this, we have decided to focus the narrative of our video around these aspects.

Creating a realistic narrative in this style will be hard as the issues focus around self-abuse, depression and drugs. These subjects are hard to tackle whilst maintaining a professional feel to the video.

The reason that these subjects are hard to reflect is because we are limited in the way of actors and equipment, as we are using consumer cameras and actors our own age. Using these alongside with limited time and £0 budget there is a limit to how professionally and realistically we can reflect these issues. We identified this as a problem that we needed to try and overcome, and so we set to finding ways over this obstacle by researching and thinking of what we can do with the equipment and actors we have.

Though we have not constructed a final and complete narrative, we have many ideas for how we could structure it. We decided that we will focus the narrative around a teenage boy, probably around the seventeen to eighteen age region. It will be about his unrequited love for a girl that couldn't care less for him, and his frustration and depression while trying to capture the affection of the girl he loves.

We decided also that for the narrative we could cut between realtime in the protagonist's bedroom as he is getting more and more frustrated, as well as in his head his imaginings of trying to get her attention. Within these shots, she would be going about her everyday life, completely oblivious to him, imagining he is there, so perhaps partially transparent or cleverly framed so his presence is ambiguous. Later on in the song, the guitar solo would start and the narrative would climax, perhaps including the main character having a mental breakdown. The reasoning for this is that I have noticed in several videos that the narrative and the song reach a climactic point simultaneously. An example of this is the Fall Out Boy 'Thnks Fr Th Mmrs' video, in which in the last chorus Pete Wentz starts smashing up the stage set.

Textual Analysis - "The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows" (Brand New)

I have chosen to research the song 'The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows' by Brand New as it is a song that has a similar sound and stylistic features to ‘Pain’ by Jimmy Eat World, the music video also contains elements of both a fragmented narrative and band shots; both of which will be used in our music video. The band also has a similar target audience in that it is aimed at mainly teenage, emotionally driven people.

Stylistically the video is very dark, thus in keeping with the ‘emocore’ genre and features. Furthermore the video features an event as its narrative [the car crash and subsequent hospitalization] that in real life can be both a very traumatic and emotional experience. This also keeps with the genre features of ‘emocore’ music. As well as this the showing of mild blood and bruises also fits stylistically with the ‘emo’ genre.

The music video itself is based around a traffic incident involving a car containing two characters (the male being the band’s singer) who we assume are in a relationship. We do not see until the end, as he appears throughout, although he does fade or flicker from time to time which gives the audience a clue as to his fate that the male character dies in the car. The female is then rushed off to hospital for her injuries.

The band shots within this video are mainly very short clips that are cut together to emphasise the pace and intensity of the chorus of the song, which is when most of the band shots are shown. They are also intermingled with narrative shots when climatic events in the video are happening. These events usually coincide with the start of one of the more intense parts of the song, which allows for added dramatic effect. For the most part the band shots are also moving, either panning or just moving slightly as they are mostly handheld, adding to the grit and realism of the band’s performance, and giving it a sense of authenticity. One of my favourite parts about this movement is the way the camera seems to bounce between both singers in the chorus. The band shots also include many close ups of the various members of the band (mainly the singer) which is most likely due to the influence of the record label, who see bands for the media products they produce, and thus try to give the band a stylistic image or persona that will make fans want to go and see them on a live tour or buy their albums, both of which will make money for the record company the band is signed to.

The singer also appears prominently in the narrative, which is fragmented, as is the case with most music videos, with in this case, the audience finding more as the video goes on. The first narrative shots fit nicely with the soft intro, before the song kicks in and it becomes very fragmented, and is intermingled with band shots, giving the strong impression that something dramatic has happened. The narrative has been kept simple but effective, with a car crash, the ride to hospital, and then what happens once in hospital, this has allowed for the director and his team to add to this massively in a stylistic sense without overcomplicating the video. The camera shots are designed to allow the audience into only a little information at a time, such as in the ambulance when only one side of the singer’s face can be seen, which appears to be fine until it cuts to a shot of him head on and we see that the other side of his face is bruised and cut. An editing effect used is him gradually fading away, which is present a couple of times in the video, and gives the sense that perhaps he isn’t really there, and is a spirit or ghost. This idea is further shown by the fact that none of the characters apart from the girl seem to notice him; leaving him in the ambulance and not tending to his injuries. This gives the idea that maybe he only there in her head. Such as when she is being pushed along the corridor in the hospital bed and the camera cuts between shots of just the ceiling, him leaning over her, singing the lyrics, the doctor leaning over her and speaking and shots of her face. The other band members also make a brief appearance in the narrative, in the waiting room, which may be another subtle way of the record label trying to sell them as much as their trying to sell their products.

The music video plays highly on the sound of the song at it’s different points, with longer shots during the slower parts, such as the shots of the singer presumably praying in front of candles during the bridge before the last, dramatic part of the song that begins with the girl’s life monitor showing she has stopped breathing. Equally the chorus’ are played alongside lots of fast paced editing between band shots and narrative that show the emotion created by the situation as well as the energy of the band’s performance.

A member of the band described the meaning of the song as "A little bit about regret. How there can be problems in a relationship and they get ignored. And how that often ends up as a broken home or some kind of bad situation down the road. It's kind of something that if it wasn't overlooked in the first place, you can kind of get through it." I think this is somewhat portrayed in the video as the couple in the narrative do not have a chance to overlook any problems between them as everything ends so suddenly and unexpectedly for them. It may also be building further on this point by imploring viewers not to take their relationship for granted and try everything they can to make it work, as it may soon be gone.

Things I would take from this video and incorporate into ours would be the good mix between narrative and band shots, and also the fact that the singer is not recognised by the other characters except one, as this is similar to an idea we have been thinking about using for our narrative, and the psychological and imaginitive factors that can be explored through that.

Underground and Mainstream music

The term 'underground', first coined in the 1970's, means music that has remained true to it's real and loyal fans, and has not sold out to 'mainstream' culture.

Emo music is a good example of this, as most of it's bands have appealed to alternative hardcore audiences. The movement itself broke off from the mainstream hardcore punk movement of mid-1980's, and was pioneered for several years by bands such as Rites of Spring and Embrace.

Like many other underground subgenres, emocore retained it's own small fan-base for a long time, specifically until the 00's, in which time period bands such as Jimmy Eat World started to emerge and redefine the scene, without being labelled as sellouts. There are a few obvious differences between underground emocore and mainstream emocore, stylistic differences, which can be seen in various music videos.

An example of this is Enter Shikari's 'Sorry You're Not A Winner' video. Though this song is very popular and mainstream these days, the band was small at the time of it's release. Because of this, the video was filmed on a low budget at a friends house, using friends as extras, and on substandard cameras, with mostly handheld shots. This is in stark contrast to mainstream emocore music, and example being Alkaline Trio. The song 'Time To Waste' by Alkaline Trio was filmed in a big empty warehouse, with sweeping camera shots, smart dressing, and general high quality, stylistic footage.

These differences, though perhaps being due to budget, reflect the nature of the band's music, and give real insight into themselves as well as the fan base.

In our music video, we are going to try and create a mainstream looking product, in a similar style to bands such as Alkaline Trio and Jimmy Eat World. We will do this through the means of camera work and mise-en-scene, but also blending elements of underground emocore into it, such as the grungy narrative.

Target Audience

Emocore as a genre has seen a huge surge in popularity since the late 90’s/early 2000’s with many bands, such as Jimmy Eat World, Brand New, Senses Fail and Taking Back Sunday finding success.

Its target audience in recent years seems to have been emotionally driven teenagers who base their taste in music on the degree by which they can relate to the lyrics in the songs as well as the emotions provoked by the thought provoking vocals and dramatic guitar.

Furthermore the traditional audience for such bands would be teenagers that have emotional difficulty and can use the emotional style of music as an outlet for their repressed emotion, often growing very attached to certain bands. An example of this is the exclusive fan group of popular emo band My Chemical Romance, named the ‘MCRmy’ which has thousands of members who consider themselves to be die hard fans of the band, and even claim that their music has helped them through hard times, or improved their life in some way.

Exclusive fan groups seem to be another way in which record companies and recording artists can extract more money from fans, such as the popular pop band McFly who have just today unveiled their new fan site ‘Super City’ which charges a membership fee of £40 a year.

However, as Jimmy Eat World have been signed to a major label for a while now their target audience has expanded greatly to almost all teenagers and young adults, even drawing in some older listeners too. Their single ‘The Middle’, which has been their most successful single to date peaked at number five in the charts and received airtime in several radio stations, along with the video being shown on large music channels such as MTV. This allowed for a greater distribution to a greater audience.

Now the target audience for the music of Jimmy Eat World is very general, simply calling out to anybody that takes an interest in either their sound or lyrics.

As far as audience demographics are concerned I believe our main target audience would be made up of teenagers, who will most likely still be in education and living with their parents. There is no particular gender bias within our target audience. Our target audience will also be single, and perhaps feel alone. I believe the typical psychographics of our target audience will be those who have a low sense of self-esteem and very little confidence. They will be the kind of people that can let their emotions out while listening to the emocore genre of music, as it leaves them in an emotionally charged state. Emocore aims to help those who find themselves depressed often, and need a release from bad emotions.

We aim to draw in this target audience through the emotional charge the song already contains, and by creating a video that reflects this emotion and has a very energetic yet dark feel, with emphasis on repressed emotion being brought to the surface and expressed.